Sermons

Churches can easily become competitive places. People jockeying to be noticed, treated by others as the significant ones.

Or you get a two-tier system. There are the keen members, the spiritual ones. And then there’s everybody else, who feel less part of things.

Competitive. Elitism. We get enough of those two attitudes in the wider world. We don’t need it here as well. And yet it so easily happens.

This morning, we continue our journey through 1 Corinthians. The second half of this letter tackles some issues in a letter they’d sent to the apostle Paul.

This text is a strange one to our ears. It’s like entering a period drama. Downton Abbey. Longer ago, maybe: Poldark. Troy, even.

It’s all about the need for women to have their heads covered, and for men not to do so.

What kind of head covering? All we can think of is posh hats at a wedding, or at Ascot. Or we think of some of the veils worn by women in Muslim countries, which have sparked debates in several western countries including our own.

But it’s not about that. So what are these head coverings?

What do you aim at in life? What do you want to achieve? What are the things that you’d make big sacrifices for?

The Christians in ancient Corinth were aiming at the wrong things. Or, rather, they were missing some very important ambitious.

And as a result, they were growing less keen on the apostle Paul, their founder.

We’re in 1 Corinthians chapter 9. If you were here when we looked at chapter 8, you’ll know that Paul was answering a question they’d asked him: “Can we eat meat that has first been offered as a sacrifice to one of the Greek gods?”

I don’t know about you, but I’m a little weary of living in a world where it’s a scramble to the top. Where everyone stands on their rights, claiming everything they think they’re entitled to. Where other people are frequently nothing more than an inconvenience for everyone’s personal ambition.

God intends the Christian church to be radically different from that. To be a refreshing picture of how humanity is meant to function. To be a foretaste of how things will be when Jesus returns.